


Vienna

by JustJasper



Series: Angst Bingo 2011 [4]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Community: angst_bingo, Disasters, F/M, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:02:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bomb causes a building to collapse while Reid and Prentiss are inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vienna

**“There's really no way to reach me.**  
There's really no way to reach me.  
There's really no way to reach me,  
Because I'm already gone.”

**\- The Fray: Vienna**

Pain and dust and dark.

Emily knew there was dust because she could feel it falling against her skin. It was dark, with just a chink of light to her left, but it hurt when she tried to move her head. The air was close and cold around her, invasive. Every part of her hurt, excruciatingly.

“Emily? Emily?!”

His voice was shaking, desperate.

“Reid!” she murmured through gritted teeth, a surge of red hot pain searing up her right arm from where  it was pinned below solid concrete. Parts of her were broken, and she knew parts of her were bleeding because the dampness around her elbow was the only warmth to be found. It was her own warm blood.

“Emily!” he repeated from close by, and even thought it hurt when his long fingers found her hand and took it, she was grateful. “Are you okay?”

“What happened?” she asked, then let out a sharp cry of pain as debris shifted a little and her leg lit up in a flash of stabbing pain.

“There was a bomb.”

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“I’m okay.” He didn’t ask her in return.

“Can you get out?”

“Emily-”

“I can’t,” she breathed. “I can’t move, Reid. I’m bleeding.”

“Emily, you’re gonna be fine.” His voice wasn’t convincing to her.

“Can you see me?” she asked, straining her eyes through the dark.

“Just in shadow,” he said, “there’s a support beam in the way. I’ve got your hand.” He squeezed it, and she sucked in a breath. “Sorry!” He loosened his grip.

“I’m bleeding, Reid,” she said. She knew she’d said that already, but it seemed important to say again.

“Emily, they’ll get you out of here.”

She almost laughed. Reid obviously couldn’t see her, couldn’t see what she could feel; there was crushing force on her arm and both her legs, and it hurt to breathe. She was bleeding and she had a metallic taste in her mouth.

“It’s not going to be fake this time,” she observed, noticing how the words slurred slightly as they came out of her mouth. There was more pain, and more dust falling in her hair. Reid understood what she meant; she heard him stop breathing for almost a minute.

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, screwing her eyes shut as pain wound along her ribcage like hands and squeezed her ribs painfully. “For everything.”

“Don’t, Em, please,” he whispered into her dark space, and she was glad she couldn’t see him, glad she couldn’t see his face crumpling.

“I love you,” she said, even though she knew it would hurt less if she was quiet.

“I can hear them moving the debris, they’re going to get to us soon, Emily,”

“Spencer, I love you,” she repeated, feeling hot tears for every kind of pain creep out of the corner of her eyes. “I’m so- ah!” Pain. “I’m so glad... ugh... the last year has been the best time of my life.”

“Thirteen months,” he whispered. She smiled despite the warm sticky feeling pooling at her hip.

“The last...ah, god, thirteen months. I’m sorry for everything I wasted before that. I’m sorry for..uh shit... Doyle. I’m sorry for Vienna.”

“Don’t, Em.” Spencer’s voice was so brittle it was no surprise when it cracked. “I love you. They’re coming to help you.”

“Spencer,” she whispered. She could feel her heart rate increasing, even as she didn’t move. She was very aware of the blood she was losing even as she felt her brain working with decreasing aptitude, and knew her heart rate increasing was not a good sign. “Spence, say it.”

“Emily...”

“Please,” she whispered. “I’m going to die here. Please say it.”

“You’re not going to die here.”

“Spencer!” it came out as a choked sob that rocked her body and caused ripples of violent pain in every nerve she had. “Please...this time.”

“No,” he sobbed.

Emily let out a long, shuddering breath into the confined space. Her left leg twitched and erupted a streak of pain up her spine. He squeezed her hand again, and it hurt, but it was such a tiny feeling comparative to every other one that she barely acknowledged it with a breath of a sound. She listened to him moving, a futile attempt to move the heavy support column trapping her body under the rest of the rubble.

Finally she felt soft skin ghost over her fingertips; it wasn’t his hand, as that was gently cradling her palm. It was his lips, his lips against the only part of her he could reach, the hand that was trapped outside of the debris. When he finally spoke, it was a whisper.

“Goodbye.”

He kissed her fingertips softly, running his own in circles on her palm.

Emily let out a relieved breath into the dark space, feeling the dust disturbed by her sigh fall onto her neck.

“Goodbye,” she echoed, closing her eyes against the pain and pressing her tongue hard into the roof of her mouth to stop herself crying out as her chest constricted painfully. “Goodbye, Spencer.”

**“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” - Kahlil Gibran**


End file.
